Born in Marseille in 1934, he began his life as a healthy, happy child. Rendered deaf by an early childhood illness, Vernet-Bonfort embraced visual arts in study and practice as a refuge from the silence of the outer world, permitting elaborate expression through a vivid and colorful visual language.

Vernet-Bonfort has been recognized as belonging to the "Modern School of Marseille", a style of French Provencal painting dominated by the sensuous colors and striking contrasts found in the rural and maritime landscapes of the South of France, and Spain.